FM recording question from a non-owner...

[gkyc]

Hi,

I'm contemplating getting an IFP-790 because I saw from the online manual that it supports timer recording. I have a few questions though about this features that was quite answered by the manual (http://www.iriveramerica.com/images/...0EngPlayer.pdf):

1. From the manual, you set an alarm time and choose the 'Tuner Record' option under Alarm/Record Select. However, how do you set the recording duration? I don't see where you specify the duration of your recording. Are you stuck with recording until the memory fills up?

2. It isn't clear from page 5-19 how you specify a recurring time. The extra blurb about "SUN ~ SAT" seems to suggest that you can have the 790 record on a specified day on a recurring basis.

3. With the 128Mb 790, what's the max and min recording time?

4. A subjective question: how does the 790's FM recording sound? I'm trying to record a classical music program. I've been using my PC with AudioGrabber and my Walkman and LAME @160 with pretty good results.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

George

[Astec]

I cant answer this but am bumping it up to try to get you one. as I always do.

[Murph]

Originally Posted by gkyc

Hi,

I'm contemplating getting an IFP-790 because I saw from the online manual that it supports timer recording. I have a few questions though about this features that was quite answered by the manual (http://www.iriveramerica.com/images/...0EngPlayer.pdf):

1. From the manual, you set an alarm time and choose the 'Tuner Record' option under Alarm/Record Select. However, how do you set the recording duration? I don't see where you specify the duration of your recording. Are you stuck with recording until the memory fills up?

2. It isn't clear from page 5-19 how you specify a recurring time. The extra blurb about "SUN ~ SAT" seems to suggest that you can have the 790 record on a specified day on a recurring basis.

3. With the 128Mb 790, what's the max and min recording time?

4. A subjective question: how does the 790's FM recording sound? I'm trying to record a classical music program. I've been using my PC with AudioGrabber and my Walkman and LAME @160 with pretty good results.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

George

Hi George,

I have a iFP-890, purchased recently. I hunted down this forum because my FM timer recordings don't work at all. No problem with the interface to set up the recording. Just no recording ever happens. If anyone can help me with this I'd appreciate it. I'm on firmware version 1.25 I believe. Don't know what else to tell.

About your questions. The firmware version I have has 'length of recording' added as a feature (bug fix?) for that release. It mentions it on the iRiver site where they mention what fixes are in that download. On my 890, after downloading this firmware it allows you to set day-of-week or "all", a time, FM frequency, and recording length in increments of 10 minutes. Mine tops out at 240 minutes but I don't know if that's a hard-coded limit or based on space avail. I'd quess the former. My unit has 256M.

Like I said, my timer does nothing for some reason but as far as sound quality goes, I have recorded FM manually just to test it and I thought it sounded very good.

Bear in mind, I have no idea if the 790 and 890 are close enough for this info to be of any consequence. sorry.

Oh and fwiw I use this for radio recordings (both streaming and over-the-air via line-in):

www.replay-radio.com

I've been really happy with it for recording radio programs. (Sure would be convenient if the 890 just did it itself though!)

cheers

[gkyc]

Originally Posted by Murph

Hi George,

I have a iFP-890, purchased recently. I hunted down this forum because my FM timer recordings don't work at all. No problem with the interface to set up the recording. Just no recording ever happens. If anyone can help me with this I'd appreciate it. I'm on firmware version 1.25 I believe. Don't know what else to tell.

I'll have to review the 790 and 890 manuals to compare the two. From the various reviews of either I've seen, no one seems to be able to identify any substantial difference between the two.

About your questions. The firmware version I have has 'length of recording' added as a feature (bug fix?) for that release. It mentions it on the iRiver site where they mention what fixes are in that download. On my 890, after downloading this firmware it allows you to set day-of-week or "all", a time, FM frequency, and recording length in increments of 10 minutes. Mine tops out at 240 minutes but I don't know if that's a hard-coded limit or based on space avail. I'd quess the former. My unit has 256M.

Like I said, my timer does nothing for some reason but as far as sound quality goes, I have recorded FM manually just to test it and I thought it sounded very good.

This sounds promising if it would just work...

Bear in mind, I have no idea if the 790 and 890 are close enough for this info to be of any consequence. sorry.

Thanks for the info nonetheless.

Oh and fwiw I use this for radio recordings (both streaming and over-the-air via line-in):

www.replay-radio.com

I've been really happy with it for recording radio programs. (Sure would be convenient if the 890 just did it itself though!)

cheers

I'm currently using AudioGrabber with my Walkman connected to my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz's line-in. That works well but it's cumbersome to have so many things. With the price of the 780/790, I was hoping to have a compact solution... Oh well, just have to wait a bit more.

Thanks.

George

[iancraig10]

I use IFP 799 and the timer is set on the same menu. You just tell it to record for 40, 50 60 etc minutes and off it goes for the time you set.

Mine works well. There is also an option to record every day at the same time - useful for recording series or plays.

[rndy]

I am using the firmware that the 799 shipped with (1.243) and it works.

The trick to this is that after setting a tuner reservation, you have to enable tuner recording.

Go to the Timer menu, and select the "Alarm/Record Select" option. Check the box that says "Tuner Record".

If the unit is off at the time of the reservation, it will turn on automatically. (I haven't experienced the problem of a separate poster who said they couldn't turn off the unit when they had a reservation).

One caution is that firmware 1.243 doesn't have a time limit on the recording so I assume it would eat your entire battery. Sounds like that is resolved in 1.5 firmware with the time settings.

Another caution is that the headphone cable is the antenna, so if you had the unit in your backpack with no headphones, the FM reception would be poor for the recording.

[wulfrun]

Originally Posted by gkyc

Hi,

I'm contemplating getting an IFP-790 because I saw from the online manual that it supports timer recording. I have a few questions though about this features that was quite answered by the manual (http://www.iriveramerica.com/images/...0EngPlayer.pdf):

1. From the manual, you set an alarm time and choose the 'Tuner Record' option under Alarm/Record Select. However, how do you set the recording duration? I don't see where you specify the duration of your recording. Are you stuck with recording until the memory fills up?

2. It isn't clear from page 5-19 how you specify a recurring time. The extra blurb about "SUN ~ SAT" seems to suggest that you can have the 790 record on a specified day on a recurring basis.

3. With the 128Mb 790, what's the max and min recording time?

4. A subjective question: how does the 790's FM recording sound? I'm trying to record a classical music program. I've been using my PC with AudioGrabber and my Walkman and LAME @160 with pretty good results.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

George

The timer works just fine providied you checked "timer record" in the menu. You can set the start time to the nearest minute and the recording length in 10 minute intervals up to 240 mins. Recording can be repeated on all days or just set to one day. If you don't cancel a recording it will repeat on that day every week afterwards. Don't forget to leave the headphones plugged in since they are used as the arial. The player switches itself on at the set time, does the recording, then turns off. Worth noting that you can't alter the volume during recording, so set it beforehand or it can be annoying to hear it when you didn't want to!

Recording length available depends on the free space on the player and the bit-rate you set. As a rough figure, 1Mb per minute at 128k (or 1/2Mb per minute at 64k etc) is needed. The quality is pretty good if you set a sensible bit-rate (something around 112k-160k). There's not much point in going higher than about 160k since broadcast FM doesn't need it.